What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[ACSeraph]

Gave Dark Souls a second chance, then got sick of it and played Golden Axe instead.

There are things I like about DS, but it's all overridden for me by the fact that the player character is completely unfun to fight with. It's like playing a deep action game with the most incompetently slow useless main character ever. It's weird because I feel like the basic combat system is deep, it's just not at all fun for me to play. I definitely enjoyed it more when I tried to stop thinking of it as an action game, but ultimately, "meh". Can't compete with 1988 Sega games.

How does Bloodborn compare to DS combat-wise, is it a bit more fluid? I don't mind the manic trial and error gameplay at all, I just can't stand moving like I'm covered in molasses.

[Immryr]

do you know about equipment burden in dark souls? your character rolls and moves differently depending on how heavily burdened he is. i think the thresholds are something like under 25% you fast roll, 50% medium roll and 75% you fat roll. i may have remembered those wrong, but it's something like that. this also effects movespeed and stamina regeneration. so if you're moving too slow, just take some armour off. in general evading attacks is better than tanking hits anyway*, so armour isn't so important.

bloodborne has slightly faster combat, you now dodge by dashing when locked on too. but it's not drastically different. the whole encumbrance thing is gone though, so every character moves the same - no matter what you are equipped with.



*unless you go full tank with a tower shield etc, but then you don't care about rolling anyway.

[Bananamatic]

dks1 is basically go fastroll or go home

[Jonathan Ingram]

I don't mind the manic trial and error gameplay at all, I just can't stand moving like I'm covered in molasses.

How fast can you generally move and roll in real life while decked in heavy armor and carrying a sword and a shield?

dks1 is basically go fastroll or go home

Dark Souls is all about abusing lag and going for a pivot backstab.

[juonryu2nd]

I think that Dark Souls is similar to games like the Classicvanias, Rastan and Völgarr. It does feel slow paced and it feels that your decisions have more weight like that. For example, a boss is defenseless for a moment and start swinging your sword: it turns out to be a mistake as a counterattack occurs before you get out of windup.

[Squire Grooktook]

I never found the movement in DS to be remotely slow. Feels just right.

Attacking on the other hand, as stated above, is a total Classicvania approach. It basically IS 3d Classic Castlevania.

[Ed Oscuro]

I don't mind the manic trial and error gameplay at all, I just can't stand moving like I'm covered in molasses.

How fast can you generally move and roll in real life while decked in heavy armor and carrying a sword and a shield?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJBmixOdysw#t=45m05s for chainmail and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jZVzsq4eKg#t=40m46s (warning, XTREEM FATROLLING)
Inertia plays a major role in this - you can still run and advance quickly, just not turn or stop quickly without assistance of another force. Meanwhile, arms are mostly free. DS just slows the character movement down overall, though it's not all bad - stopping at heavy weight is probably faster than real life as inertia doesn't carry you forward much in-game, and arms are still free. On the other hand I find that fatrolling in DS is probably considerably more agile than one would expect in armor. Despite high weight running looking strange in DS, for gameplay purposes, I think inertia was never considered. I agree with Squire and juonryu, there's already a good "commit to attack" method in the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsNOTWW7W6s#t=27m38s
Polearms in DS aren't as big as some of the ones in real life, but they're also very rigid and very easy to maneuver. Pikemen had to execute coordinated maneuvers with a long swaying pike in order to change facing (i.e., sliding one's hands up and around, basically pivoting around the pike) and of course this was without being heavily encumbered by armor.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Still playing P4 Arena Ultimax occasionally. Still not that good though.


I decided I wanted a few of the navigators, so started playing Risky Score Attack which is pretty much a bunch of BS fights against Boss/Unlimited versions of the characters. I scouted the mode a bit with Naoto and cleared all 4 of the Risky courses as her by using fate counter instakills followed by the normal instakill. Thankfully, continues are allowed on Ultimax(Elizabeth if you're using her will occasionally say "I'll credit feed my way to victory" when you choose to continue). I have one of the courses for Elizabeth done(course A), but still need to do B,C, and D. There really could have been less courses as there's quite a bit of repeats in them. Then after unlocking Elizabeth's navi, I also want Fuuka's(which requires doing all 4 risky courses with 2 different characters, I think it's Minazuki and Shadow Labrys). Maybe I'll choose to go for a few others after that, but for now I really only want these 2.


But what a frustrating mode this is.

[ACSeraph]

It does feel slow paced and it feels that your decisions have more weight like that.

I definitely see this, and that"s why I felt like it was better to view it more as a strategy game than an action game.

I should clarify, my issue isn't my walk/run speed, it's just the attacks themselves feel incredibly slow, especially compared to the enemies. I was fighting some skeletons and would dodge and land clean hits on them, only for them to recover from being hit and attack me before I recovered from my own (correct!) swing. That's what I don't like. It feels like your attacks don't have any impact on the enemies. They feel and look heavy for your character, but the enemies are barely stunned at all when they get hit.

Anyhow I still want to give it some more time. I don't hate it, it reminds me a lot of Diablo 1 with the lonely and vaguely creepy atmosphere and not quite an action game but not quite an RPG either combat.

How fast can you generally move and roll in real life while decked in heavy armor and carrying a sword and a shield?

I understand this, but I don't play games for realism. I play games to escape from it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Gave Dark Souls a second chance, then got sick of it and played Golden Axe instead.

I approve wholeheartedly.

Every time I played Dark Souls I wished I were playing something that felt more fluid. I know it's trying for 'realism' but goddamn the fighting feels clunky. Gimme God Hand or Devil May Cry over that any day. Hell, gimme a more basic hack 'n slash RPG. Sure, you're slow in platemail in real life, but your weapon swings feel so wimpy in Dark Souls. And it's not as if rolling or cartwheeling around is terribly realistic in any fight compared to a simple sidestep.

[Ed Oscuro]

Halberd strikes sure don't feel wimpy! They might not always do great damage, but they aren't wimpy. Same goes for the various backstabs / ripostes, though that's mainly down to the exaggerated stagger and animations.

Again, DS isn't based on realism. It's based on 'net latency.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I remember being annoyed by how run, jump and dodge were all mapped to the same button. Also, bow and arrows were silly, so many sections were not designed with projectiles in mind and had enemies that simply sat there and ate shots without any decent pathfinding to come and attack you.

[Ed Oscuro]

Bows & arrows is definitely a case of "can you restrain yourself from ruining the game?" Kind of like how I couldn't restrain myself from severely overlevelling - but the game's still fun and challenging enough at points. And, in any case, opportunities for cheesing through the game start drying up later on (if anything, polearms have a better lifespan for this, since you can hit many enemies through walls). As for the single button stuff, in practice I found it helpful just to focus attention on precise timing. There isn't any reason to be jumping around willy-nilly at bosses, anyway, and those actions are mutually exclusive with jumping. And at least you can do those things for the sake of exploration, instead of playing in a Flatland, i.e. Gears / Vanquish.

[ACSeraph]

I'll keep soldiering on with it for a little bit I think. Probably my expectations were much too high given the hype that surrounds the series. So far the most enjoyable thing had been the absolutely mesmerizing broken pot physics. Nintendo needs to hire the DS pot physics team for the next Zelda game...

[Squire Grooktook]

Basically, if you want the 3d equivalent of Castlevania, play Dark Souls. If you want the 3d equivalent of Contra, play Bayonetta.

(I know Bayonetta is more about slashing, but its the freedom of movement and evasion that makes them similar)

If you hate Classicvania though, don't play Dark Souls because its the same thing in 3d. Combat/movement/attacking isn't faster or slower, it's the same.

[KAI]

Playing Gungriffon [Saturn] (It's so pretty and arcadey) and Grandia [PSX] (dat battle system and Feena <3). Game Arts is the shit.

[Blinge]

Shovel Knight.

Shovel Knight is excellent.

[Formless God]

I kinda want to see you all try Monster Hunter lol

[Blinge]

I want to try it. but won't be buying a 3DS or sony portable in the forseeable future.

worth trying on ps2 or Wii?

[Jonathan Ingram]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJBmixOdysw#t=45m05s for chainmail and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jZVzsq4eKg#t=40m46s (warning, XTREEM FATROLLING)
Inertia plays a major role in this - you can still run and advance quickly, just not turn or stop quickly without assistance of another force. Meanwhile, arms are mostly free. DS just slows the character movement down overall, though it's not all bad - stopping at heavy weight is probably faster than real life as inertia doesn't carry you forward much in-game, and arms are still free. On the other hand I find that fatrolling in DS is probably considerably more agile than one would expect in armor. Despite high weight running looking strange in DS, for gameplay purposes, I think inertia was never considered. I agree with Squire and juonryu, there's already a good "commit to attack" method in the game.

lol at the dude doing a roll in full armor in the second video. He does get back on his feet surprisingly fast, though. I wonder if From Software could give various physical parameters such as acceleration and inertia more realistic properties and still make a Souls game a compelling experience.

worth trying on ps2 or Wii?

No. PS2 Monster Hunter is masochist territory: mobs hit harder than high rank monsters in newer entries and you're always short on supplies and money. MH Tri for the Wii has a dearth of content compared to the rest of the series and much of it is online only. Provided your PC isn't completely ancient, I suggest that you get a PSP emulator(PPSSPP) and play Monster Hunter Freedom Unite and Monster Hunter Portable 3rd instead.

[Formless God]

Haven't played the PS2 ones but they are probably too dated by now. Wii version was kinda meh. The PSP games are good so looks like PSP emulation is the way to go.

[MR_Soren]

Been onto computer games lately. Namely:

League of Legends
Hearthstone
Heroes of the Storm

Oddly enough, the community in LoL has been great, especially compared to HotS.

[Bananamatic]

Oddly enough, the community in LoL has been great, especially compared to HotS.

what universe do you live in

[Obiwanshinobi]

Nah, various Sonic games have had split-screen before Billy.

I knew I'd forgotten some titles: in 2D Dahin' Desperadoes/Rumble Kids and in 3D - Kuri Kuri Mix/The Adventures of Cookie & Cream are exclusively split-screen platform games.

worth trying on ps2 or Wii?

I've only played Monster Hunter Tri, but it brought 2-player split-screen to the table.

[MR_Soren]

Oddly enough, the community in LoL has been great, especially compared to HotS.

what universe do you live in

Don't know. All I can say is that I've played LoL 3-4x as much as HotS, yet I've never seen any terrible verbal behavior in LoL. Worst thing I had in LoL was a guy who kept calling surrender votes that failed, so he sold off all of his equipment and started deliberately feeding the enemy each time he spawned. In HotS, I've had several players go AFK when losing, players yelling and swearing at the team for being terrible (this coming from the team's leader in deaths), and I've been cussed out by three players simultaneously who said I cost them the game for not turning a 2v5 team fight into a 3v5 team fight when we were 2 levels down. The way I saw it, feeding the enemy again was a poor idea. I'm new, perhaps I was wrong, but I think it was just a group of inexperienced players who wanted to constantly rush the enemy heroes.

LoL even has a post-game chat that HotS lacks, yet everybody in there has always been civil. In HotS, I feel like the average player is younger and less experienced with the genre. Probably because brand recognition brought a lot of players in. I think it's a Blizzard thing.

Hearthstone players are pretty awful too, but not as bad as when the game first launched. I suspect most of the poor attitude players grew up or quit playing. Hopefully HotS will mature in a similar way.

[ACSeraph]

Right well, I really tried to give DS a fair chance. Played a few more hours last night trying to get a better handle on combat and the way everything works. I changed my character up in order to get fast roll. It makes movement and dodging pretty acceptably fun for me, but I think the real heart of the problem is the incredibly slow attack speeds. Too much start up and recovery to feel smooth or exciting. Going to have to lay this one to final rest I'm afraid. Glad I only paid $5 for it.

(I should point out that I don't think it's a bad game, just it's not what I wanted it to be, and I'm not interested in the character building RPG aspects that seem to be the heart of it)

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^Nah the combat/level design is really the heart of it. Character building is just a bonus.

Dark Souls playstyle isn't my favorite, much like Classicvania, but I can enjoy it as a more methodical and vulnerability focused alternative to more super hero-esque games. Like I said, it's like CV: The lack of cancelibility on the start up/recovery of your moves adds a unique strategic layer to the combat that isn't found (or at least not executed as well) in most 3d hack and slash. It's all about a fighting game-esque style of being aware of everything, watching and waiting for opportunities, planning ahead with each action, etc. It also has quite a bit of emphasis on precise spacing and positioning, which is rare for a 3d action game IMO.

[ACSeraph]

See I actually like oldschool Castlevania a lot though, so I think it definitely is even slower paced than those games. I do see your comparison though. Maybe the style just feels tighter and more streamlined to me in 2D. As for the fighting game flare, I think Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 are much better at that than DS. Just not for me I guess, I won't trash it.

[Blinge]

1 more thing dude, what area were you in? I need a name.

Also what weapons did you try out? At the beginning your choice is rather limited.

[ACSeraph]

I'm still at the start of the game pretty much, down in that dark water filled area with all the ghosts. Tried out a longsword, a mace, and a rapier. I honestly don't have that much patience for games these days; if it's not fun pretty quickly in then I've got hundreds of others on my shelf that are. I'm sure I put more than 3 hours into screwing around in DS, which is a lot more time than I give most games that don't instantly engage me. I'm not willing to waste any more on a game that I don't enjoy.